A wry blend of hilarity, fantasy and everyday life, educator Matt West's writing captures the subtle and not-so subtle humor in the life of a Southern family man. His unique view of ordinary and imagined events leaves the reader either laughing out loud or with a new and amusing insight into daily life. His short, often self-deprecating anecdotes will strike a familiar chord in his audience, although some might think to themselves, I just wouldn't have told that one. The book leaves the reader wanting more of these somewhat twisted but entertaining musings. 'This book will give you a look inside the mind of a comedy writer. If the author wanted to do stand-up comedy, he already has all the material he needs inside his head. Couldn't stop reading this book--except when I was laughing so hard I had to put it down. - Darl DeVault Distinctly Oklahoma magazine The older of two sons from a U.S. Navy family, Matt West attended schools in New Jersey, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Alabama. After finishing high school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he majored in physical education at the University of West Alabama and began teaching in 1997. He later completed a master's degree in educational administration.He is now the assistant principal at Albertville (Ala.) Middle School.
Master innovative and eye-catching website design with the exciting new Treehouse Series of books Turn plain words and images into stunning websites using HTML5 and this beautiful, full-colour guide. Taking you beyond the constraints of prebuilt themes and simple site building tools, this new Treehouse book combines practicality with inspiration to show you how to create fully customized, modern, and dazzling websites that make viewers want to stop and stay. The exciting new Treehouse Series of books is authored by Treehouse experts and packed with innovative design ideas and practical skill-building. If you're a web developer, web designer, hobbyist, or career-changer, every book in this practical new series should be on your bookshelf. Part of the new Treehouse Series of books, teaching you effective and compelling website development and design, helping you build practical skills Provides career-worthy information from Treehouse industry pros and trainers Explains HTML5 basics, such as how to format text, add scripts to pages, and use HTML5 for audio and video Also covers hypermedia, CSS and JavaScript, embedding video, geolocation, and much more Leverage pages of dazzling website design ideas and expert instruction with a new Treehouse Series book.
In the words of Lee Child on Gone to Dust, “I want more of Nils Shapiro.” New York Times-bestselling and Emmy Award-winning author Matt Goldman happily obliges by bringing the Minneapolis private detective back for another thrilling, standalone adventure in Dead West. Nils Shapiro accepts what appears to be an easy, lucrative job: find out if Beverly Mayer’s grandson is foolishly throwing away his trust fund in Hollywood, especially now, in the wake of his fiancée’s tragic death. However, that easy job becomes much more complicated once Nils arrives in Los Angeles, a disorienting place where the sunshine hides dark secrets. Nils quickly suspects that Ebben Mayer’s fiancée was murdered, and that Ebben himself may have been the target. As Nils moves into Ebben’s inner circle, he discovers that everyone in Ebben’s professional life—his agent, manager, a screenwriter, a producer—seem to have dubious motives at best. With Nils' friend Jameson White, who has come to Los Angeles to deal with demons of his own, acting as Ebben’s bodyguard, Nils sets out to find a killer before it’s too late. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Brannock brothers couldn't be more different, but they have one thing in common: the drive to make their dreams come true in the wild and wide-open southwest territory. Virgil Brannock's got plans-big plans: From Washington D.C. to the most desolate reaches of the territory, he'll build a railroad empire with sheer guts, raw ambition, and hot lead... Clint Brannock is a solitary man by nature, but that doesn't stop him from joining up with the Cavalry in a violent charge that will darken the desert sands with blood... Earl Brannock lives by no law but his own-until he finds a new code of honor with the Comanches. But will his brotherhood with that fierce, proud tribe put him at odds with his blood kin? Now, on a harsh frontier where weakness equals death, three brothers will cross paths once more-and three men's conflicts will come to a head as a new page in history is written amidst greed, gunfire, and the quest for glory...
Contains two Western stories by Matt Braun, including "El Paso," in which the marshall of the corrupt city of El Paso, Texas, in 1881, faces his biggest challenge when he comes up against the Banning Brothers; and "The Wild Ones," in which the Fontaines, a family of New York City stage performers, experience many hardships on their way West in the 1870s, and must depend on beautiful and talented young Lillian to sing them out of their troubles.
Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press Bestselling Western novelist Matt Braun brings home the hearty flavors, traditions, and lore of Western cooking in this collection of more than 100 mouth-watering recipes. Braun, a fourth-generation Westerner, writes from experience and his years of researching the American West, interlacing recipes with the colorful history of frontier fare.
The Enshrouded Lands ' an earth-like world where magic bubbles away beneath the surface, beyond the ken of the common folk ' may take so many forms that they really are a thousand worlds in one. This is the second rulebook for the Omnifray RPG. It continues on from the Basic Handbook, delving deeper into the mysterious fabric of the Enshrouded Lands, with detailed information on possible backgrounds for player characters and masses of material on an array of secretive cults. It presents the standard advanced rules for fantasy Omnifray in full. The complete Omnifray system awaits you. This book gives your PCs greater access to feats of physical energy and concentration as well as full access to feats of elder magic, unholy magic, holy magic, mystical power and destiny, downtime feats such as divination and herbalism and feats of combined physical energy and concentration. You must be familiar with the Basic Handbook to use this book. Omnifray is intended for a mature audience.
Two of bestselling author Matt Braun's most beloved novels—now newly repackaged as a 2-in-1! In The Overlords, Galveston, Texas belongs lock, stock, and barrel to a handful of criminal overlords. Kingpins of vice, gambling, liquor, and big-time show business, the overlords never counted on a stubborn Hollywood stuntman who inherited his uncle's bank and a grudge. Nor could they have predicted that one Texas Ranger and a beautiful woman would try to shut down America's paradise of gambling. Now, a dangerous brew of mobsters, flappers, traitors, lovers, and lawmen is about to explode in a sin city by the sea. Who will be left standing when the last man goes down? In The Wild Ones, the Fontaines were not prepared for the life they found across the Mississippi. From Abilene to Dodge City, this family of New York City stage performers crossed paths with some of the legendary figures on the frontier, from Jesse James to Bill Hickok and General George Custer. All the while, the Fontaines kept searching for a place to settle down...until they set their sights on the boomtown called Denver.
Dan Stuart is a sporting man from Dallas with a scheme as big as Texas. He plans to stage the prizefight of the century and reap a million-dollar gate. But Stuart finds the path to riches strewn with obstacles. Outraged politicians block him at every turn, and a gang of robbers led by a sharp-shooting beauty have plans of their own--the heist of the century. Stuart has two champion pugilists, give gunmen, Bat Masterson and Judge Roy Bean in his corner. Now, with the robbers set to score and the Texas Rangers hot on his trail, the West's first boxing promoter is desperately searching for a place to hold his fight. And when he finds it, what a hell of a fight it will be!
Bill Tilghman was the real thing, a lawman who wore his badge for one reason alone: to bring criminals to justice. Master novelist Matt Braun captures the final days of this extraordinary manhunter--when he faces a heroic fight on the bloody corrupt streets of Cromwell, Oklahoma. The saga of a man who would not back down and the woman who loved him to the end, One Last Town tells the story of a land swiftly vanishing into a new era: the legendary American frontier.
Two of Matt Braun's most beloved novels—now newly repackaged as a 2-in-1! In The Spoilers, private detective Luke Starbuck has been hired to ferret out the Judas working for the Central Pacific-a mastermind behind a string of train robberies. The target: gold shipments from the Frisco mint. All Starbuck has to do is pass himself off as an outlaw and infiltrate the pack... But chumming up to a gang leader like Denny O'Brien means that Starbuck must follow him into the vice pits of the notorious Barbary Coast. Getting inside this hellhole of crime is dangerously easy if you make the right moves. Make the wrong ones, and getting out could be murder... In The Warlords, It's 1915. In Europe, men are dying in trenches. In Washington, sentiment is growing for war against the Kaiser. And in Mexico, an explosive plot is set in motion by a German agent, a deposed dictator, and an army of murderous rebels. Amidst the chaos of Pancho Villa's revolution, a force of embittered Tejanos has crossed the Rio Grande, burning ranches, killing Texans, and gathering fighters in its wake. For the Germans, the goal is to paralyze America. For a daring Special Agent and a Texas Ranger, the mission is to go deep behind enemy lines and cut out the heart of an astounding conspiracy—before the West is drawn into a bloody war of its own...
MATT BRAUN IS A MASTER STORYTELLER OF FRONTIER HISTORY." —Elmer Kelton THREE MEN CONQUERED THE FRONTIER Three Brannock brothers once came West. Now, one of them survives, and Clint Brannock feels the weight of responsibility as he does his job as a U.S. deputy marshal. Hunting down an outlaw in the Indian territories, Clint meets up with two of his nephews—one destined to live or die by the gun, the other to live or die in his shadow. And in southern New Mexico, a beautiful sister-in-law, Elizabeth, presides over 100,000 rich acres—and dabbles in a dangerous game... ONE MAN IS LEFT TO DEFEND IT... A vigilante named Miguel Ortega is using terror to drive out Anglo settlers. A woman of her own proud heritage, Elizabeth has a grown son and daughter, each of whom stands to inherit an empire. But she has forged a forbidden bond with Ortega. With violence spiraling out of control, the government sends Clint to lay down the law. Soon, all the Brannocks must take a stand and risk their lives—for justice, each other, and the land that is now in their blood... "BRAUN IS ONE OF THE BEST!" —Don Coldsmith, author of the Spanish Bit series
DODGE CITY Matt Braun The cattle trail from Texas to Kansas was long, hot and dangerous. And by the time cowboys got there, they had the money and means to make a boomtown explode—and make Dodge City a great place to be a defense attorney...as long as you weren't looking for an innocent man. Harry Gryden believes in the kind of justice that only happens in a courtroom. In Dodge, it's his job to make sure that the accused get their fair trial. But Harry is a little too good at what he does. And with the Masterson brothers, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday laying down their own brand of law, being a courtroom legend is turning Harry into the rarest of Dodge City men: one who doesn't carry a gun, but is in a fight for his life...
Doc Holiday Matt Braun He came from the American South, a gentleman by breeding, a dentist by training, a gambler by vocation. But as Dr. John H. Holliday, a man fleeing his tragic past, drifted across the West, living among some of the roughest men on the frontier, word spread quickly he never walked away from a fight, and he never drew too late. Now, from Dodge City to Denver and Cheyenne, from boomtown to sinkholes, "Doc" Holliday was driven by the demons of his past, a skilled gambler and a seasoned mankiller--his name was known and feared long before the O.K. Corral. The story of a man who spoke softly and carried a lightning gun, Doc Holliday is Matt Braun's extraordinary chronicle of the West's most complex and legendary figure.
Today, many people take the delivery of mail for granted. However, in the Wild West, each time a man carried mail across vast deserts and mountains, he went on an adventure. Readers learn what it was like to be a mail carrier for the Pony Express during one of America's most expansive times, including challenges faced, battles won, and daily existence for those who dared travel that far.
The West made legends of two men. Heaven help the fool who dared to risk their wrath. In a windswept campsite of the Fifth Cavalry Regiment, Russia's Grand Duke Alexis has arrived to experience the thrill of the buffalo hunt. His guides are Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody--two heroic deadshots with a flair for showmanship and a thirst for adventure. But a train approaching from the East will provide Alexis a front-row seat to murder and mayhem that will set Hickok and Cody on the trail of cold-blooded killers. The Orphan Train is nothing more than a traveling asylum for young urchins, stolen off the streets of New York's Lower East Side. Across the country they will be sold to the highest bidder--unless stopped in their tracks. Hickok and Cody take on the task, and begin a deadly cross-country journey tat will end in the wilds of Manhattan. Their quest for justice pits them against underworld thugs and raw corruption in a bloodbath that rocks the city. New York will never be the same again...
In the Texas Panhandle, Newt Bascom and Sam Jordan are stock detectives who have the brains to outwit most rustlers—and the brawn to outfight the rest. Now, Bascom and Jordan are being dispatched on a once-in-a-lifetime job. Someone has made off with a prized, imported English bull named Homer. The detectives have to bring Homer home... From Palo Duro Canyon through the Staked Plains, Bascom and Jordan pick up the trail of the missing bull—and the shadowy rustler who took him. And when Dodge City, run by an ornery Marshall named Earp, turns up empty, the detectives head into a wild land. Bluffing, bludgeoning and bragging their way into a smart, secretive and deadly criminal gang, Bascom and Jordan find their bull all right. But stealing back a critter who has love and leisure on his mind proves to be the easy part of the job. The hard part is getting back to Texas—with Homer and their lives...
They'd killed five men already, and stole a quarter of a million dollars in silver and gold. Now, a band of vicious thieves has drawn the best man that Wells Fargo can send: the rangy, mysterious Chicago-based Pinkerton agent named Ash Tallman. An operator who works with a pleasure- loving beauty who goes by many names and does her best work in the least amount of clothes, Tallman is heading to Red Rock, Arizona territory. In the shadow of the towering Ricon mountain range, hardcase highwaymen are plotting their next hold-up-and will hurt as many people as they can along the way. Ash and his lady, both going deep undercover, quickly find their way inside the strange, vicious outlaw band, but that's only the beginning. For while the killing goes down in Red Rock, the planning takes place in Tucson. And that's where two outgunned Pinkertons must face an evil all its own...
Two of Matt Braun's most beloved novels—now newly repackaged as a 2-in-1! The Old West comes vividly to life in two novels from bestselling author Matt Braun Something about the boy named Kinch Riley made hardened railroad agent Mike McCluskie take him under his wing. But Kinch got too fast with a gun just as a band of Texas outlaws rode into Newton, Kansas. For the first time, McCluskie will walk into a battle he can't win. Kinch Riley is the masterful retelling of the Newton General Massacre of 1871. In Hickok and Cody, Russia's Grand Duke Alexis has arrived to hunt buffalo. His guides are two heroic deadshots, Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. But a train approaching from the East will provide Alexis a front-row seat to murder and mayhem that will set Hickok and Cody on the trail of cold-blooded killers.
MATT BRAUN IS A MASTER STORYTELLER OF FRONTIER HISTORY." -Elmer Kelton Could the most feared gunman in the West Ben Thompson carved out a name for himself as a gambler and a shootist-from Dodge City to the Rio Grande. But settling down in Austin with a wife and young son didn't settle Ben's taste for the sporting life. He still found himself in the gambling dives-where the turn of a card too often led to a shootout. Become a respectable lawman in the wildest city in Texas? Soon a circle of powerful businessmen decides that Thompson is the only man who can tame Austin's wild side. They ask him to rule the streets-and take no prisoners. They want him to take on the job of a marshal in a town in which every man packs a gun. Thompson's career as a lawman is about to take an explosive turn. He finds himself at a crossroads: Is his personal code of honor the price for a tin-star badge? It's a risk he's willing to take...even if there's no going back. "BRAUN IS ONE OF THE BEST!"-Don Coldsmith, author of the Spanish Bit series
At the foot of the Wind River Mountains and just east of the continental divide was Tenbow Valley, eighty miles of rich, watered graze on the way to Oregon territory. From Cheyenne, Jack Stillman has come to Tenbow to solve a string of murders. Each victim was a landowner in the valley, and each killing was carried out with a deadly, long range rifle. Taking on the guise of a gambler, Stillman is quick to line up his suspects and start prying open their secrets. But while greed is the likeliest reason for the murders, the killer keeps striking—even when Stillman has his eye on the suspects. Suddenly, in a land of wild honeysuckle, snowy mountain peaks, and the spirits of native warriors, the veteran lawman realizes he's made a fatal mistake and missed a motive as old as time itself...Now it may be too late because an expert at murder has Stillman in the crosshairs of his gun...
In California, The Southern Pacific Railway was prying the West wide open, and the land was worth its weight in gold. While some men got in on the action, and some got out of the way, one group of settlers was making a stand-and holding up the railway. Turning to Alan Pinkerton's Chicago detective agency, the railroad robber barons hired the perfect agent to penetrate the settler's organization, a man who had learned a spy's trade in the Civil War. Tall, debonair, and pleasure-loving Ash Tallman can fight when he has to, lie when he needs to, and make love when he wants the right kind of woman on his side. But as Tallman enters the lush San Joaquin Valley in the company of a risk-taking beauty, he finds a fight with no clear battle lines, no sure enemies, and only one way out-by hunting the killers who are hunting him...
In the 1870s the frontier was a battleground, where the U.S. Army fought Plains warriors, outlaws terrorized the land, and lawmen took no prisoners. Into the West came a family of New York City stage performers: a widowed father, his son, and a daughter whose beauty and singing voice could make the most hardened frontiersmen weep. The Fontaine family was not prepared for the the life they found across the Mississippi. From Abilene to Dodge City, they crossed paths with some of the legendary figures on the frontier, from Jesse James to Bill Hickok and General George Custer. All the while, the Fontaines kept searching for a place to settle down--until they set their sights on the boomtown called Denver. Awaiting Lilian Fontaine in Denver is fame and loss, fortune and betrayal. But between dodge and her destiny are a thousand miles of unconquered country, an outlaw band, and one man who will force the young songstress to give the performance of her life...
The Enshrouded Lands - an earth-like world where magic bubbles away beneath the surface, beyond the ken of the common folk - may take so many forms that they really are a thousand worlds in one. Omnifray is the game of your choice: - your choice how the story develops, your choice as a player of the background and abilities of your character and your choice as referee of how to interpret the game-world and its secrets, how to use the rules and what your monsters can do. Omnifray is enormously flexible and packed with innovative ideas. It can be a challenging game to run or play; if you want the best in atmosphere, choice and a true-to-life feel, and a level playing field for all PCs, you can take that challenge! In this book is all you need to play: - world background, basic rules, legendary creatures, basic NPCs and a taster of the advanced rules, with magical powers for NPCs and feats of physical energy and concentration for player characters. Omnifray is meant for a mature audience.
In a lawless land When Luke Starbuck takes on a wealthy banker as a client, the only thing more compelling than the paycheck is his prey. The James-Younger gang has confounded countless detectives, including the men of the Pinkerton Agency. Now it's Starbuck's chance to bring down the most notorious group of outlaws the West has ever seen-led by none other than cold-blooded killer Jesse James. One man will enforce his own brand of justice... Undercover work and patient tracking take Starbuck from Kansas City straight through the Indian Territory. But when Jesse outwits him during a bank heist in Minnesota, innocent blood is spilled, and Starbuck's mission becomes a down-and-dirty vendetta that will leave one man standing-and the other six feet under...
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